Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads (2005) / Chapter Skim
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The Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21) of 1998 called for protection of the environment by initiating transportation projects that would improve environmental quality and support fuel efficiency, cleaner fuels, and alternative transportation.
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(4) of TEA-21, which required the secretary of transportation to "study the relationship between highway density and ecosystem integrity, including the impacts of highway density on habitat integrity and overall ecosystem health, and to develop a rapid assessment methodology for use by transportation and regulatory agencies in determining the relationship between highway density and ecosystem integrity." Section 5107(d)
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Cumulative effects will be considered. The proposed study will also provide a conceptual framework and approach for the de velopment of a rapid assessment methodology that transportation and regulatory agencies can use to assess and measure ecological impacts of road density.
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The committee did not focus on urban street networks, and no consideration was given to the ecological effects of unpaved roads, such as those found in federal forests, wilderness areas, wetlands, parks, and farms, or the ecological effects of state and local roads. The committee did not address global or regional climate effects, such as how potential climate changes might affect the interactions of organisms and the environment associated with roads and vehicles or how roads and traffic might influence climate.
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In extreme cases, the resulting limitation of gene flow could result in local extirpation of a species. Properly designed mitigation measures, such as wildlife-crossing structures, can facilitate wildlife movement across roads and reconnect isolated populations.
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. The native habitat conditions of a roadside are frequently altered, but when the surrounding landscape is greatly altered by development, roadsides can include some of the last remaining habitats, especially for certain native plant species and some insects, birds, and small mammals.
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Although most of the current and foreseeable transportation projects in the United States are along established roads, the increase in traffic volume on these roads and the selection of sites for new roads bring to the forefront the potential for new ecological impactsand associated, often delayed responses of the environment. Understanding and Assessing Road Effects As described above, a great deal is known about the ecological effects of roads, even though there is need for more and better information about cumulative, long-term, and large-scale effects.
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CONCLUSION: Planning boundaries for roads and assessing associated environmental effects are often based on socioeconomic considerations, resulting in a mismatch between planning scales and spatial scales at which ecological systems operate. In part, this mismatch results because there are few legal incentives or disincentives to consider environmental effects beyond political jurisdictions, and thus decision making remains primarily local.
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A broader set of robust ecological indicators should be developed to evaluate long-term and broad-scale changes in ecological conditions. CONCLUSION: The assessment of the cumulative impacts of road construction and use is seldom adequate.
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Recommendation: Improved models and modeling approaches should be developed not only to predict how roads will affect environmental conditions but also to improve communication in the technical community, to resolve alternative hypotheses, to highlight and evaluate data and environmental monitoring, and to provide guidance for future environmental management.
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The Federal Highway Administration should consider amending its technical guidance, policies, and regulations based on the results of such studies. CONCLUSION: The state transportation project system offers the opportunity to consider ecological concerns at early planning stages.
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The Federal Highway Administration, in partnership with state and federal resourcemanagement agencies, should develop environmental information and decision-support systems to make ecological information available in searchable databases. CONCLUSION: Transportation agencies have been attempting to fill an institutional gap in ecological protection created by the multiple social and environmental issues that must be addressed at all phases of road development.
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Incentives, such as funding and technical support, should be provided to help planning agencies, resource agencies, nongovernmental groups, and the public to understand ecological structure and functioning across jurisdictions and to interact cooperatively.
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